Watcher in the Woods (Rockton #4)(74)

“Hmmm?”

“That’s how she remembered Eric. The boy with the raven. She’d told him that studies suggest corvids can use tools, and he tested it, trying to train one.”

“Wait. Isn’t this the guy who rolls his eyes at you for training that raven behind the station?”

“Yep. Believe me, I am not going to let him forget that. But this”—I lift the feather—“means the message is for him.”

“Message?” Anders looks at the skull. “Didn’t Eric say the hostiles use skulls as territorial markers?”

“Human ones. Old human ones. I don’t know if this would mean the same thing or—”

At a movement, I turn, hand going to my gun. A figure approaches at a jog, and before I can pull my weapon, I recognize the newcomer.

“We’re over here!” I call.

“Yeah,” Dalton says as he slows to a walk. “I can hear you two a kilometer away.”

“Just scaring off the cave bears,” Anders says. “As you can see, we did an awesome job, so you didn’t need to worry about a thing.”

The cave bear joke comes from early in my stay, when Anders took me deeper into a cave, away from the others. Dalton hadn’t let us be gone long before he came to check on us, and Anders had joked about cave bears.

At the time, I figured Dalton was just being his usual overcautious self. I realize now what Anders must have at the time—that Dalton hadn’t loved the idea of his deputy sneaking me off for a private tour.

“We saw Maryanne,” I say, and I explain, handing him the feather and skull.

When I finish, he’s examining the skull. “I have no idea what it means. If she thought I would then . . .” He shrugs. “I’m glad to hear she’s okay.” He squints in the forest. “I’d like to get her back to Rockton.”

“I know,” I say. “If she’s coming out when she hears us, maybe we’ll get a chance when you’re around.”

“And when I’m not,” Anders says. “I spooked her.”

“Everything spooks her,” Dalton says. He puts the feather and skull into his pack. “What happened to getting the bodies?”

I tell him. He searches the clearing for clues but finds nothing, and we head back, talking the whole way, partly in hopes Maryanne will hear Dalton and come out. She doesn’t.





THIRTY-ONE

It’s midnight by the time we get to Rockton, and the sun has dropped low enough to leave only a glow in the night sky. We head for Sebastian’s apartment.

“He was supposed to share a place,” Dalton says as we walk. “That’s the one time he was a pain in the ass. He got downright snappy about it. The whole flight up from Vancouver felt like sitting beside a fucking mannequin. Most people have questions about Rockton. Even you did. Sebastian didn’t say a word. It was sp—” He rubs the back of his neck and doesn’t finish.

“It was what?” I ask.

He shakes his head.

“Eric? It’s me.” I wave around the empty street. “Just me.”

He wrinkles his nose and hesitates before blurting. “Spooky.”

I have to laugh at that. “What’s wrong with saying it was spooky?”

“It sounds . . .” He waves his hand. “Nebulous. People give off vibes, especially when I first meet them, ready to bring them here. Anxious. Nervous. Scared, even. Or defensive. Angry. Belligerent. Sometimes relieved. Happy. Excited.”

“What vibes did I give off?”

“Not a damn thing.”

“Like sitting beside a mannequin?”

“Nah, with you, I could tell there was more, and I just couldn’t get a read on it.”

“But Sebastian’s vibes were spooky.”

“No. See, that just sounds weird. I just . . . I don’t know. Last time I felt anything like that was when I brought Mathias in. I met him at the airport, and he was charming and polite as fuck, and all I could think was ‘I should leave him here.’ I did not want the guy in my town. Which proves that my sixth sense for people is bullshit.”

“Uh, not sure I’d go that far. Mathias . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. He’s manageable, though.” He pauses. “Where was I going with this?”

“Sebastian’s apartment.”

Dalton shakes his head. “I’m tired and rambling. All right, so, two hours into the trip, I’m the one feeling anxious. I want to get him talking, reassure myself he’s fine. So I start explaining the living arrangements, telling him he’ll be bunking down with someone, and he turns and gives me this look. He’s a kid, right? Twenty-one? But that look, it was . . .”

“Spooky?”

I’m smiling when I say it, but Dalton still glowers. “No. See? Now you’re not going to let me live that down. The look was not spooky. It just wasn’t what I expect from a kid. It reminded me of when I bring fifty-year-olds in and tell them the rules, and they give me this look, like ‘Who the hell are you, boy?’ Sebastian gives me that look, and then he says, in this ice-cold voice, ‘That is not what I was told.’ I said whatever he was told was wrong, because he’s a new resident, and the place we have ready for him is shared accommodations.”